A Return to Purple: Assembly Progress....lack of bases

So made some progress last night on my three new crew boxes I'll be adding to my Neverborn from yesteryears.

Zoraida, new Lilith, and Pandora boxes are assembled, as well as Miss Ery, Tuco, and Black Blood Shaman. Need to just assemble one of the regular plastic teddies. Some notes on assembly of these crew boxes.

First of all, the plastic models are absolutely amazing sculpts, no argument there. Out of the three I recently assembled though, I was surprised that the newest one (Zoraida) was so complex. Some of the decisions on where to split the model just seemed weird, but I'm not a sculptor/modeler so take that for what its worth. Each silurid had a separate tongue which wasn't terribly difficult to deal with but was something to take care of. Also the silurid standing on the rock had a very thin left leg making it a challenge to get it to stand nicely.

Now I love the pose, so maybe the frustration was worth it. So my main complaint with this box is that a lot of the key contact points (legs/arms) really could have benefited from more notched joins. Its just odd that some had them while others did not. Overall, though I am quite happy with all of these boxes and really can't say they were that difficult. The Bad Juju model is stunning and is the main reason I bought the box, but know I'll get a lot of good use out of Silurids in the upcoming year.

Zoraida herself was interesting, her dress is similar to the female Illuminated model. She goes together pretty easily, but all of her voodoo dolls (while cool) took extra time to get put on the model. Speaking of, the actual voodoo doll model has some super thing plastic areas which look like they will probably break off with excessive use.

For now I am awaiting on the Secret Weapon Blasted Wetlands bases to arrive. I am doing these three boxes on these wetlands and Lucius is based on DragonForge Lost Empires already. I forget what Lynch is on since he has been built and based for over a year and a half.

Dragonforge 30mm Lost Empire

Secret Weapon 30mm Blasted Wetlands

Thanks to some friends on Google Hangouts who pointed me to the actual secret weapon video showing ideas on making getting the bases all water-effect fancy.

So looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I think this is a good challenge for me in the hobby area, since its something I've never done before. I have most of the materials already just need to track down some water effects liquid from the hobby store.

Played 2 Missions of Firestorm: Planetfall...

Yesterday Jerico and I sat down to learn Firestorm: Planetfall. I have been in love with the models ever since Jeremy first posted up the news about em way back. I held off just knowing there'd be a ton out there to play. Disclaimer, this was a learning game, anything below could be wrong and incomplete since we were playing through the starter box. Also, just random impressions throughout this, but thought some may be interested.

So the first mission is a simple move and occupy, no opposing forces. These intro games are played on a 2'x2' and each gets larger.

Now I've been told that its is standard Spartan Games ruleset with some obvious caveats, differences, and unique rules, but for me it was my first time playing a Spartan Game so it was all new to me. Its the exploding 6 dice, etc. so I won't go into that.

As far as occupying a building can be done with infantry units and once they're inside they are hard to dislodge, especially if you get up close (see Close Quarters Combat below). This is one of the main ways to score points in the game, grabbing and controlling objectives. A secondary way to score is for every squad you kill of your opponents (as they have points associated with them).

So the second mission is where we got to see the Directorate (me) face off against the Aquan Prime (Jerico). This was fun. Victory is obtained by getting your planetfall (forget name) tracker down to zero. We started at 12, this is done as I mentioned before by killing squads, but more importantly by controlling victory point scoring buildings (there was one). Besides having infantry occupy to control you can have entire squad that has the "Track & Hold" ability (like my scout buggy).

Think it took about 5 turns to get the game to a finish point. It was quite close, but once my infantry got in the building it was just time that i needed to really win. We did identify that tanks should not try and move up on a building to shoot for any real reason (at least the units we used). As you would expect its best for the tank to sit back and just blast the building. The reason for this is one of my favorite parts of planetfall....Close Quarters Combat (CQC).

CQC is sort of reminiscent of ARO in Infinity. Basically if a squad ends a move within 4" of an enemy squad the chance for CQC occurs. The attacker decides first if he/she will CQC, then the defender. This is great because, like Infinity ARO, it keeps both players involved and you both feel like you're really doing something even though it isn't your turn. Then each squad rolls their unmodified CQC die (different stat) for their entire squad and starts reporting damages. In this case, during CQC attacks, squads don't get to use their shields to defend so the damage can help turn the tide before the main ordinance attack which is about to come. This is also why its bad for a tank to move up to a building which is occupied and try and take out infantry because it gives them free shots.

So after both sides complete CQC and casualties are removed (closest ones to squad first), the main ordinance attack occurs. This is where a vehicles/troops main weapon is fired. You can do things like focus (if you haven't moved) or consolidated shot where all vehicles in the squad fire at an enemy (which some reduction in dice pools but still helpful when a bunch of buggies are trying to take out a tank).

Anyways, I know this is long, but its random thoughts from the game. Loved it a bunch. Here are some photos I took before the game.

Live Free or Die Cheating 2015 Malifaux Event

This is the 2nd annual "Live Free or Die Cheating" Malifaux event. This will be a Gaining Grounds 2015 event held on May 2nd, 2015.

This year we are trying something different, as the event will be held at a private hall. Milly's Tavern, in Manchester, New Hampshire. If we can sell at least 24 tickets. Otherwise it will be held at the Game Castle, like last year.

By reserving and buying this ticket you are guaranteeing a spot at the event which includes the following (regardless of location):

• 1 ticket for enterance to the event
• 1 Lunch time meal
• 1 on-site cash-bar (only if at Milly's Tavern)

Note: A portion of your ticket fee will go towards charity (to be decided) and to prize support.

Reserve your spot today!

This event is NON-REFUNDABLE due to the deposit required on the location.

Event registration for Live Free or Die Cheating 2015 powered by Eventbrite

A Return to Purple: Neverborn is the new Rezzers in 2015

A Return To Purple

This is the start of what I plan to be the coverage of my journey back to purple. I'll be playing Neverborn in 2015. For me, it is a return to where I started. Lilith was my first master back in Malifaux 1st Edition. While I still plan to use my old metal models, and some new-to-me metal models I picked up with the recent price reduction on Wyrd's old stock. I am really focusing on the 4 plastic boxes I have with other stuff sprinkled in.

I have already assembled and primed and played a few games with Lucius (you won't see them in the list below as I've already assembled and based them). I will be building new plastic Lilith, Pandora, and Zoraida boxes. I am looking forward to this in fact. Initially, I felt overwhelmed that I'd be able to build all of these, and get them on the table with color. I even went as far to have a quote done on getting them commission painted and decided, I'd just challenge myself with painting them all myself.

What I'm listing here is all of the stuff I plan on using for my 2015 Neverborn year that needs to get assembled, primed, and painted. I will be putting just about all of these on swamp bases from Secret Weapon miniatures. I may have missed some, but at least this is as complete of a list that I can think of right now. It comes to 18 30mm bases, 5 40mm bases, 5 50mm bases. Stay tuned as I'll try and post things up as I go both from a modeling and a gameplay perspective. As always, listen to Joe and I on Cheated Fates Radio.